This invention relates to a mushroom harvester and method, and more particularly, to an apparatus and a method which facilitate the harvesting of fresh mushrooms and the speedy separation of product from waste stumps.
In the traditional method of harvesting mushrooms, a picker typically leans into the growing bed and pulls from the bed three to five mushrooms at a time. He or she then leans back toward pre-positioned product and stump containers, and individually cuts each stump, using a hand-held knife. The mushroom caps (products) are then placed in a proper container for storage or shipment.
Mushrooms of medium size typically weigh about 25 pieces per pound, so that there would typically be about 250 mushrooms per 10 pound container. To harvest 250 mushrooms using conventional manual techniques, would thus require of the picker approximately 50-85 in and out motions from the growing bed and 250 individual cutting motions to remove the 250 stumps. Depending upon the quality, size and coverage on the growing bed, manual harvesting in the above manner can be expected to yield approximately 40-60 pounds of product per hour.
The present invention relates to apparatus and a method which greatly enhance the output of a mushroom picker by enabling the picker to pick mushrooms from the growing bed with both hands, to cut product from stumps in a single cutting operation, and to facilitate dumping of the stumps into a collecting container in a single operation.
By eliminating substantially all individual hand movement in the removal of stumps from the product, and effecting such removal in one quick action, the mushroom harvesting process is made much more efficient and cost effective. Harvesting using the present apparatus and method is believed to be 100% to 150% more productive for each man-hour.